we have watched al qaeda elements able to destroy our or damage severely our consulate in benghazi and kill four brave americans. the message has to be sent that the united states is in engaged and that the united states is ready to be involved and the united states is ready to do whatever is necessary to prevent an act that could endanger or take the lives of literally thousands and thousands of innocent people. >> thanks, john. we have reached a grave moment in the war that's raging in syria now for 20 months. and it's grave for the obvious fact that we believe that the assad government has weapononized chemical and biological agents and put them in a position where they can be used fairly rapidly. as you look back over the 20 months of this conflict, this follows a series of events, one leading to the other which people said could not happen. this began, remember, with peaceful demonstrations. and when assad was unable to control them or suppress, he began to fire on his own people and they began to defend themselves in a very unfair fight which everyone thought we should take sides